What were your first thoughts when reading this shirt saying? Did it make you feel great? Inspired? Proud? Or did you read it and feel angry or disgusted?
The workout shirt featured above is a shirt made by Constantly Varied Gear and was posted to the CVG Facebook fan page. Within a few hours of posting the comments began to roll in…
The similarity between all of these comments is the focus around physical appearance. Notice the choice of words “skinny“, “my looks” and “perfect body“. Isn’t that interesting? The shirt saying reads “Do it because your kids deserve a mother they can brag about.” It doesn’t say a single word about being skinny or having the perfect body. In fact, it says nothing about physical appearance at all.
What is most fascinating about these negative comments is that the things that people are upset about is something that has been perpetuated in their own mind. In a sense, they should be mad at themselves because they’re spinning the shirt saying to mean something that it doesn’t.
This shirt meaning is not about looking skinny or physically perfect. This shirt is about bragging about a mother who is happy, healthy, able and well. This shirt is about being able to run and play with your children. This shirt is about bettering oneself to be able to live a longer life that can be shared with your family. Those are the things your children can brag about and that is the meaning of this shirt.
The members of the CVG FB Group understood this message clearly because this is a message that constantly preached to the CVG community. Here are a few comments from positive minded people attempting to clear about the confusion about the shirt saying…
The biggest take away that I see from this is that 2 different people can read this shirt and have 2 different perspectives. There is no debate around that. One person can read this shirt and feel proud and inspired and another person can read it and feel like they’re being shamed. You choose your perspective. If your original perspective was anything but positive please know that the shirt was not meant to be viewed in this way. Here’s the reply from CVG…
If you would like to see the original post that this article is based on you can view it here.
So what do you think? Tell us your perspective in the comments below!